None of Radio 4's news programmes will be available to listen to internationally, apart from some non-Games related elements of Today, because the corporation's media rights agreement with the IOC bars it from broadcasting anything online outside the UK from the Olympic Park or other Olympic venues.

The IOC ban will also hit Radio 5 Live news shows being broadcast live from London 2012 venues, including Live Olympic Breakfast, for the duration of the Games.

It is too complicated – and expensive – for the programmes to be re-edited for the international audience because of the amount of Olympics content involved, so the programmes affected have been taken offline permanently for the duration of the Games, according to a BBC spokesman, with the exception of Today.

As a result, holidaying Radio 4 listeners will have to go without many of the station's regular news programmes for the duration of the London Games, which officially starts on Friday evening and runs until Sunday 12 August.

The exception is Today, with the BBC planning to edit out Olympic elements and put the rest of each edition of the show online. However, on days when the show has a lot of Olympic coverage – such as Thursday and Friday this week – Today will also be blocked for overseas listeners.

When listeners tried to access the audio for Today from abroad on Friday, they received the following message: "The BBC's agreement with the International Olympic Committee means we are not allowed to broadcast anything online outside the UK from the Olympic Park or Olympic venues.

"As a result, this programme may need to be blanked for International listeners due to rights issues surrounding Olympic content in programmes."

The BBC's agreement with the IOC also prevents it from broadcasting any Olympics archive material online outside of the UK.

"We love all our listeners, but the Olympics makes up a large proportion of our news programmes at the moment and we simply don't have the staff to edit the programmes and put them up online," said one BBC insider. "We don't have the rights to broadcast anything from within the Olympic Park or the archive.

"On the one hand, it is a great shame. On the other, people listening from abroad don't pay the licence fee."

A BBC spokesman said: "The BBC is not host broadcaster for the London 2012 Olympic Games. The host broadcaster is OBS, who have been appointed by Locog and the IOC.

"OBS provide a feed for all rights-holding broadcasters across the globe, including the BBC. The BBC holds broadcast rights for the UK only and cannot therefore provide international streams of programmes containing output from Olympic venues."

The World at One daily podcast will still be available, but re-edited without any Olympics Park content.

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